If it wasn't already hard being a PS Vita fan, Sony is preparing to make it even more difficult. The entertainment giant has just announced that it will close the PlayStation Store on the handheld in July 2027. That means that you've only got a year left to download digital versions of the best PS Vita games before all that remains is second-hand physical sales. That last bit is pretty ironic, considering that Sony announced this new development alongside the news that it's ending physical disc production for PlayStation consoles in January 2028.
Arriving back in 2012, or 2011 in Japan, the PS Vita might not have been a massive hit compared to some of the rest of the best retro handhelds, such as the Nintendo DS or Game Boy Advance, but it's long maintained a community of devoted fans. The new announcement, via the official PlayStation Blog, puts those Vita users in a difficult position of either spending the next year picking up as many games as possible or facing the Wild West of the second-hand market, which could well see significant price inflation following this announcement.
It's worth noting that while the PlayStation Store is closing on the PS Vita, Sony has promised that we'll still be able to download previously purchased content for the "foreseeable future." That's a pretty important caveat, as otherwise the brand would be blocking users from games they technically own, which could turn into a consumer-rights nightmare down the road. The same applies to the PS3, with Sony also phasing out the home console's PlayStation Store over the next 12 months, on different dates in specific regions.
Admittedly, the end of digital sales on the PS Vita doesn't come as a massive surprise. Back in 2021, Sony did the same thing with the PSP, meaning the only way you can check out the top picks from our guide to the best PSP games is by picking them up second-hand. Still, it feels like the end of an era, making the PS Vita a little less easy to pick up and play for the next generation of gamers looking to get their hands on retro hardware. It also means that the video below, which at the time was intended as a savage takedown of Xbox, has aged like milk.
The one glimmer of hope we can take from the end of the PlayStation Store on PS Vita, as well as the demise of physical disc production, is that it could signal the company is preparing for the launch of a new handheld. Many leaks point to the PS6 launching alongside a PlayStation handheld equivalent, so it could be that Sony is going all-in on digital to avoid manufacturing two types of physical copies for each device. Still, this is all speculation at the time of writing, and it doesn't make the end of the PS Vita's digital storefront any less of a bitter pill to swallow.